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.
i.
At the age of 9 she was picking 250 lbs. of cotton a day and taking care of the cow both
morning and night. She started school that same year and walked 10 miles round trip each
day. At 12 she received a scholarship to Scotia Seminary in Concord, North Carolina. At 19
another scholarship to Moody's Bible Institute in Chicago, Illinois. At 20 she went to New
York to ask the Presbyterian Board of Missions for a station in Africa only to be told
that there was no opening for a Negro in Africa at that time. "This was the greatest disappointment in her life," she said. "Those were cruel days."
With crushed hopes and a heavy heart she accepted a teaching job at Haines Normal
Institute in Augusta, Georgia. There she met and was married to Albertus Bethune. He
was teaching in Savannah, Georgia. Her baby boy came there and she decided to help
the world offer her child chances. She could not find a teaching job in Savannah so departed for Palatka, Florida. When the child was 5 years old she went to Daytona, Florida
and there on a public dump heap in 1904 she opened officially Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls. A small house of seven rooms with a well, an
outdoor toilet and kerosene lamps housed the students, five girls and one boy ages 8-12.
At the age of 48 she yielded her treasure to the Methodist Church to develop and use as
a new coeducational school called Daytona-Cookman Collegiate Institute.
In 1924 her friends and admirers gave her a trip abroad and the trustees of her school
changed the school's name to Bethune-Cookman College.
As her personality unfolded to reveal her true greatness she moved out into the main
stream of national affairs and became an adviser to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
later on she became administrator of the office of Minority Affairs of the National Youth
Administration.
In 1950 she visited her home and after sixty years found that the old school she attended battered and worn was still the only school open to the Negro Children of Mayesville.
She shook her aged head. There was much yet to be done! Unequal educational opportunities, inadequate housing and poverty.
The white mansions of the slave owners were gone. She once held them in awe but when
she remembered the childhood episode in the playhouse of the Wilson grandchildren she
prayed a prayer that the day may come when no child anywhere in the world will have to
flinch under the stinging words "Put down that book, You can't read."
She died in 1955.
PLANNING A VOTER REGISTRATION CAMPAIGN
A good citizen must be a registered voter. But the job does not stop there. We cannot
rest until every citizen is a registered voter. You have been helped to register through
this citizenship course. It is now your turn to help your neighbors. Plan a registration drive
for your neighborhood or community:
1. Select a Site (neighborhood or town)
2. What is the size of the Negro population?
3. Number of Registered Voters
4. Number of Negroes of Voting age
5. How many can we get to register?
6. During what period of time? (State dates).
7. Area of Concentration
8. Number of Volunteer Workers needed to cover area.
9. Organizations to take part in the drive
28
(churches, voter's leagues, youth groups, clubs)
SUGGESTED STEPS FOR A BLOCK PARTY
Have a meeting at your home to help your neighbors to understand the importance
of voting, how to register, and where to register.
1. Invite every adult on your street, from corner to corner (In rural communities, select
all houses within walking distance) to come to your home for an evening of information and fellowship.
2. Have Voter Registration information and material on hand.
3. Have someone there who can talk on why, how and where to register.
4. Following speaker, have a discussion on some of your community problems and how
voting can help solve them.
5. Tell why your block should have 100% voters.
6. Plan a meeting for the next week to give help to each other. (If possible, arrange
to start a Citizenship School.)
7. Plan trips to take people down to register when they are ready.
8. Have someone contact the persons who did not show up at the meeting.
29

The SCLC Citizenship workbook which opens this folder is a fascinating document in itself, full of literacy and arithmetic basics, a synopsis of black history and of freedom song lyrics, and advice about planning a voter registration campaign and a block party. "The 1964 Civil Rights Law and What It Means to You" follows. Also included are the following: the March 1964 report of a committee working on the freedom school curriculum for the Mississippi Summer Project. A 1963-1964 CORE report on books, equipment, and funds the organization had received. A document called a "Civil Rights Mosaic"--a summary of the civil rights movement in U.S. history--along with "Sources for Further Information on the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi." An analysis of police and minority groups in Boston and Philadelphia by Alan Gartner. Jane Stembridge's notes on Stokely Carmichael's Waveland workshop on Black English. A list of the books in the Canton Freedom Library. A first draft (May 1965) of a "school workshop booklet." "Freedom Primers" No. 1 and No. 3. Correspondence regarding obtaining good quality adult literacy materials. An unattributed demographic report called "Mississippi Economics: Mississippi's 'New Image.'" An MFDP document called "Political Mississippi" outlines Mississippi governmental structure, electoral procedures, and party organization. A curriculum guide to black history for elementary school teachers. Gordon Carey discusses the history and problems of Black nationalist movements in the U.S. A UNESCO report on race. Michael Harrington's "The Economics of Racism" as accurate a description of African-Americans' position in American society today as when he first wrote it. " The folder concludes with a lengthy "Guide for the Study of Negro History in the Churches" put out by a Presbyterian Church in Chicago.

Copyright to these documents belongs to the individuals who created them or the organizations for which they worked. The principal organizations have been defunct for many years and copyright to their unpublished records is uncertain. We share them here strictly for non-profit educational purposes. We have attempted to contact individuals who created personal papers of significant length or importance. Nearly all have generously permitted us to include their work. If you believe that you possess copyright to material included here, please contact us at asklibrary@wisconsinhistory.org. Under the fair use provisions of the U.S. copyright law, teachers and students are free to reproduce any document for nonprofit classroom use. Commercial use of copyright-protected material is generally prohibited.

.
i.
At the age of 9 she was picking 250 lbs. of cotton a day and taking care of the cow both
morning and night. She started school that same year and walked 10 miles round trip each
day. At 12 she received a scholarship to Scotia Seminary in Concord, North Carolina. At 19
another scholarship to Moody's Bible Institute in Chicago, Illinois. At 20 she went to New
York to ask the Presbyterian Board of Missions for a station in Africa only to be told
that there was no opening for a Negro in Africa at that time. "This was the greatest disappointment in her life" she said. "Those were cruel days."
With crushed hopes and a heavy heart she accepted a teaching job at Haines Normal
Institute in Augusta, Georgia. There she met and was married to Albertus Bethune. He
was teaching in Savannah, Georgia. Her baby boy came there and she decided to help
the world offer her child chances. She could not find a teaching job in Savannah so departed for Palatka, Florida. When the child was 5 years old she went to Daytona, Florida
and there on a public dump heap in 1904 she opened officially Daytona Educational and Industrial Training School for Negro Girls. A small house of seven rooms with a well, an
outdoor toilet and kerosene lamps housed the students, five girls and one boy ages 8-12.
At the age of 48 she yielded her treasure to the Methodist Church to develop and use as
a new coeducational school called Daytona-Cookman Collegiate Institute.
In 1924 her friends and admirers gave her a trip abroad and the trustees of her school
changed the school's name to Bethune-Cookman College.
As her personality unfolded to reveal her true greatness she moved out into the main
stream of national affairs and became an adviser to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
later on she became administrator of the office of Minority Affairs of the National Youth
Administration.
In 1950 she visited her home and after sixty years found that the old school she attended battered and worn was still the only school open to the Negro Children of Mayesville.
She shook her aged head. There was much yet to be done! Unequal educational opportunities, inadequate housing and poverty.
The white mansions of the slave owners were gone. She once held them in awe but when
she remembered the childhood episode in the playhouse of the Wilson grandchildren she
prayed a prayer that the day may come when no child anywhere in the world will have to
flinch under the stinging words "Put down that book, You can't read."
She died in 1955.
PLANNING A VOTER REGISTRATION CAMPAIGN
A good citizen must be a registered voter. But the job does not stop there. We cannot
rest until every citizen is a registered voter. You have been helped to register through
this citizenship course. It is now your turn to help your neighbors. Plan a registration drive
for your neighborhood or community:
1. Select a Site (neighborhood or town)
2. What is the size of the Negro population?
3. Number of Registered Voters
4. Number of Negroes of Voting age
5. How many can we get to register?
6. During what period of time? (State dates).
7. Area of Concentration
8. Number of Volunteer Workers needed to cover area.
9. Organizations to take part in the drive
28
(churches, voter's leagues, youth groups, clubs)
SUGGESTED STEPS FOR A BLOCK PARTY
Have a meeting at your home to help your neighbors to understand the importance
of voting, how to register, and where to register.
1. Invite every adult on your street, from corner to corner (In rural communities, select
all houses within walking distance) to come to your home for an evening of information and fellowship.
2. Have Voter Registration information and material on hand.
3. Have someone there who can talk on why, how and where to register.
4. Following speaker, have a discussion on some of your community problems and how
voting can help solve them.
5. Tell why your block should have 100% voters.
6. Plan a meeting for the next week to give help to each other. (If possible, arrange
to start a Citizenship School.)
7. Plan trips to take people down to register when they are ready.
8. Have someone contact the persons who did not show up at the meeting.
29

Copyright to these documents belongs to the individuals who created them or the organizations for which they worked. The principal organizations have been defunct for many years and copyright to their unpublished records is uncertain. We share them here strictly for non-profit educational purposes. We have attempted to contact individuals who created personal papers of significant length or importance. Nearly all have generously permitted us to include their work. If you believe that you possess copyright to material included here, please contact us at asklibrary@wisconsinhistory.org. Under the fair use provisions of the U.S. copyright law, teachers and students are free to reproduce any document for nonprofit classroom use. Commercial use of copyright-protected material is generally prohibited.